Nightmare in Storybrooke
by bloodrosered
Summary: Colleen O'Shea is lost in Neverland along with Henry. There are trails of sand in Storybrooke-black and gold. Mr. Gold and Regina take an interest in the sand. Pitch has a dark plan for the fairy tale lands. It's up to the Guardians and the citizens of Storybrooke to save their realm from the powers of fear and darkness or they will be lost forever. Takes place during Season 3.
1. Shooting Stars

_4:15 AM, Storybrooke_

It was late in the sleepy town of Storybrooke, Maine, there was the sound of thunder. Not out of the ordinary. It was bright flash of gold and black. It zipped along the sky...then disappeared.

* * *

 _Neverland_

The sky lit up once again with the same gold flash and something crashed on the island of Neverland. Peter Pan saw something crash, bolting up. He had to find out what it was. He began his journey towards the crash site.

Tree branches cracked. There was a moan of pain. Colleen O'Shea laid unconscious on the ground. Blood came from her head.

Stirring as she awakened, she smelled trees...a forest...judging by the temperature and the feeling of sand beneath her, she had to guess it was some sort of jungle. blinking her green eyes. A blonde woman laid on the ground in the jungles of an island, covered in black sand. Shaking her head and dusting herself off, she stood up on shaky legs. She hurt all over when she moved. Worst of all was feeling a shooting pain up her arm.

"Shit," she cursed.

Her arm was broken. Steadying herself on her unstable legs, she used the nearest tree to help her stand.

Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail; the oddest thing was a single black stripe in her blonde hair. She was about in her twenties, dressed in a tank top and a pair of sweatpants, barefoot. She looked around to see where she was and didn't recognize anything.

Sore and tired, she got up and tried to walk. It just hurt so much. She grasped a trunk, steadying herself to sit down on the sand. She'd have to come up with a plan to find help. Hell, she had been trained to. She just had to figure out where she was and if there were any people. She looked up at the sky to figure out what stars were in the sky-none of them looked recognizable to her. Nothing like she had ever seen in her life.

Peter Pan watched from the shadows, seeing the intruder. A black stripe was in her hair. Though she was an adult and was certain the shadow would get rid of her, there was something about her. Something radiating off of her-she seemed...lost.

* * *

 _North Pole_

"North!" Jack Frost said panicking. "She's gone! Colleen's gone! Pitch...a-and Sandy..."

"Where?" North said frantic.

The Guardian of Fun explained the scene he had witnessed: the screams and the horrible nightmare. Waving his staff, he used ice to get Pitch away from her. He evaded his move...just barely. He and Sandy battled with Pitch in Colleen's rooms. Then the flash of light and the two of them disappeared. Jack barely had time to see where they went.

"I...I don't know," he said, tears streaming down his face. "She was...she disappeared...with a snow globe..."

"We need to find her," North said serious. And Pitch. Who knows what he is planning this time."

"He pulled the switch in the globe room to summon the others...the Northern lights signal glowed in the sky, alerting the others...

* * *

Pitch Black had landed somewhere in the forest. Dusting off his black robe with remnants of ice and dreamsand, he frowned in annoyance. Those damn Guardians! Especially the Frost child. They always ruined his plans to take over the world to bring fear and darkness. He had almost succeeded. This time it wasn't going to happen.

He had to find her. He was close to turning the girl into a fearling-not just any fearling. The one that possessed her was old and dangerous. If only that brat Frost and the damn Sandman hadn't interfered: if they hadn't knocked him into the shelf...knocking one of North's snow globes...and the girl disappeared...along with him and Sandman.

Upon looking around, he saw the sign for Storybrooke. There was something about this town...it had an overwhelming amount of magic. Evil magic almost. He could sense it. He saw the sign, staring with his gold eclipse eyes.

"Storybrooke," he read. "Interesting town."

A car pulled up towards him.

Hey!" said someone, opening the window. "You lost?"

Pitch smirked as he conjured some black sand behind his back.

"Yes," he replied. "How far is the nearest town?"


	2. Sandstorm

The clock in Storybrooke struck in the early morning hours, echoing in the empty streets. Many of the residents had the oddest dreams-it started out quite pleasant and then it became frightening. It was pretty confusing. Dreams and nightmares were fighting each other all through the night.

Mr. Gold had awakened from a particularly disturbing nightmare: All he could hear were the distorted screams of a boy. A flash of green light. And the boy disappeared like smoke. Another scene in the dream was a small boy screaming and a man growing smaller and smaller; two little hands reaching for an obscure figure, but he couldn't reach him. The man eventually disappeared like smoke.

While he didn't understand these dreams, but he was certain what one of them was about. Cupping his hands on his face, he felt the urge to cry. His heart was heavy with remorse. He was so selfish for choosing the Darkness. He wondered where Bae might be. Did he hate him for what he did? He decided to get his mind off of the nightmare by taking a walk.

He looked over at Belle. She looked so beautiful with her chestnut hair falling over her face. He moved a lock away, smiling at her graceful features and chuckled upon seeing that she had once again fallen asleep while reading a book. Other than having Belle in his life, there was nothing in the world that he wanted in the world-other than to have Bae back. Not wanting to wake her, he stealthily slipped away from her side. He'd leave a note on his pillow explaining where he had gone.

Gold pulled on some clothes and grabbed his cane. Exiting his home, the air seemed gloomy and foggy. While walking down the sidewalk, there was an unusual crunching sound beneath his feet. He looked down to see two streams of sand.

He was quite confused. What would sand be doing here in Storybrooke? He looked around to see there were more streams of sand in the streets: black and gold. He carefully knelt down and grabbed a pinch of the golden grains-amazingly, it began to respond, creating an image. It was him and Baelfire, dancing and playing, just like old times. The pawn dealer's brown eyes widened as he realized the sand was magic! As he kept watching the image, he started to feel a tiny bit sleepy after touching it.

He shook it off. He turned his attention to the black sand, it responded almost immediately. It whispered tauntingly all of Gold's worst fears-Baelfire screaming as he was sucked away into the world without magic. Milah abandoning him. His own screams as the Shadow dragged him away from his father, Malcolm. Becoming the Dark One.

Gold backed away from the sand almost immediately. He didn't quite understand what was going on but he knew that this sand had dangerous magic. He reached into his pocket, producing two velvet bags and carefully scooped up each of the sand. Maybe Belle could find out something about this strange, magic sand that had come into their town. Given she was a great reader of books, she would surely find something.

* * *

As the citizens of Storybrooke began to awaken, they were shocked to find their town was covered in sand. They whispered among themselves about how this got here. What it was. Each of them had a gripe about this freak sandstorm that blew in: how their cars, homes and businesses were covered with sand. Ruby was heard screeching loudly when she found it inside her car since she had left the windows open overnight.

"My car!" she cried. "It's ruined!"

"You're telling me," said Grumpy. "It got into our truck too!"

"I'm sure there's an explanation," Happy said, trying to be optimistic.

"Uh...how do you explain this?" Grumpy replied gruffly, gesturing to the the back hatch. "This was a FREAK of nature, Happy!"

"Since when does a sandstorm happen here?" Ruby said. "The nearest beach is miles away and it's tiny!"

"It's just not logical," Doc said. "This has to be magic."

"Oh, you think?!" Grumpy replied sarcastically.

"But who would have such magic?" Bashful asked.

"Who else would it be?" Grumpy replied.

"Why would Regina bring sand into our town?" argued Happy. "That makes no sense."

"Does Regina need a reason to do anything? I say we confront her."

"Before we jump to conclusions, there has to be another explanation," said Doc. "I'm sure she doesn't know anything about the sand."

Grumpy let out a scoff. "Right. We have no reason to trust that woman...let alone the woman who runs our town and happen to have secrets. She's gone too far this time.

* * *

It was not even 8:15 AM and already Regina Mills was grumpy from the start. She didn't sleep really well, given the nightmares she had. She decided to start her morning out with some strong coffee since being mayor of Storybrooke was such a big responsibility. She wasn't even awake when the phone started ringing off the hook. Citizens left her angry messages, complaining about the sand all over the town and they were all demanding answers.

She had barely got a sip of her coffee when Henry interrupted her thoughts.

"Mom?" Henry said.

"What _IS_ it, Henry?" the brunette said, irritated.

Seeing her son's slightly scared face, she apologized quickly, rubbing her temples and changed her tone to a calm one.

"Sorry, honey...what is it?"

"Why is there sand all over town?" he asked.

Regina let out a sigh of exasperation. She had heard enough of the complaints from the citizens about the current problem in her town.

"I don't know, Henry," she said. "I'm still trying to figure that out."

"Did you have nightmares, Mom?" he asked.

Another frown came from the mayor. How could Henry know what was going on? Then again, maybe it was just Henry being his usual self. It was just like when Mary Margaret gave him that fairy tale book three years ago.

"No, Henry," she said.

"I did," he said. "I saw a man in black with yellow eyes. He had these...ugly horses following him. They chased me."

Regina got up from her seat and squatted down to Henry's level with a look of concern. Holding his shoulders, she gazed into his eyes.

"It was just a bad dream, Henry," she said.

"I know. It still felt real."

She hugged him tightly to comfort him. She didn't want to admit that she had a very bad nightmare as well. In her dream, a man with a hole in his chest. A beating of a heart somewhere. He turned to ash and began to disintegrate before her eyes. The dream was disturbing enough to find herself waking up with tears in her eyes. But if there was one thing she didn't like was for anyone to know she was vulnerable. That she had fears. She wanted to be the cool, composed and dominant-someone who could take control of any situation with no problems.

The moment was broken by the sound of angry knocking on the door. Henry ran to the window and looked outside.

"Looks like the whole town is here," he commented.

With a sigh of exasperation, she went to the door. What could she have possibly done to piss off Storybrooke now? She was trying to get past the whole 'Evil Queen' thing since coming to the Land Without Magic and trying to redeem herself. Opening the door, she found Storybrooke's citizens outside along with huge trails of sand everywhere. It was indeed all over her lawn, her porch and walkway, even her apple tree! There were trails in the street, the rooftops were covered with mixture of black and gold sand. It was almost like a sandstorm had blown through here. People began demanding explanations that it sounded like cawing of loud magpies.

"ALRIGHT!" she said loudly, throwing her hands up. "Let's all calm down. I already know about the sand situation. I will run an investigation on this and we will get this cleaned up."

"That's what we'd like to know," said Grumpy, crossing his arms. "This...this is nothing we ever seen before."

"It got in my car!" Ruby complained.

"Understandable that we're all upset," Regina announced. "But rest assured, this will get taken care of. I will have our finest police investigating this, of course."

Regina's heels crunched on the path as she walked towards the a trail of sand, kneeling down with slit brown eyes. She was about to touch it.

"I wouldn't touch it if I were you," Mr. Gold warned.

Regina's hand retracted away from the sand almost immediately. She glanced at the brown-eyed imp that she knew as Rumplestilskin.

"What do you have to say about this, Gold?" she asked.

"This sand...it's magic," he said.

"Magic?" The mayor arched an eyebrow.

"Aye, Regina. I was out walking pretty early when I came upon this sand. The gold sand creates pretty images while the black makes frightening images. It's like it can sense something within you."

"The sand can 'sense' stuff?" Regina said skeptically.

"Aye. I'm bringing some samples to Belle to examine it."

"Well, good then," Regina said. "But it looks like I have a huge mess to clean up."

* * *

Emma Swan was already been on the case about the mysterious sand. Her phone was ringing off the hook about this disaster. She had collected samples to put in evidence.

Belle was already awakened when she heard about the sandstorm that blew into Storybrooke. She looked at the sand under a microscope. There was nothing extraordinary about the sand's shape-the gold sample had a mixture of crushed rocks, seashells and crystals. The black looked rough with holes that reminded her of gaping mouths screaming. Eyes that were wide with terror.

"Odd," said Belle. "This is not like any sand I've ever seen."

"Lemme see," said Emma.

Emma glanced down the microscope, looking at the samples.

"Odd looking sand," said Emma. "What can you tell about the sand?"

"Well, one things for sure, it's definitely not sand from any beach I've ever seen," Belle said. "And Rumple said it's magic."

"Magic sand?" Emma said with a frown. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"Well, every magic object has an origin. Let's see if there's anything about it."

Belle got up from her seat and headed to the computer, typing in stories about magical sand. A few words came up until she spotted the word SANDMAN. Clicking on the link, it brought up the article.

" _The Sandman_ ," she read.

"As in the character who brings sleep and dreams to people?" Emma said arching an eyebrow.

"Exactly. Says here that the Sandman puts people to sleep with magical sand by sprinkling it in their eyes."

"Makes some sense, but it doesn't explain the black sand. Or why there's so much of it."

Belle frowned. "I'll see if there's any books here about the Sandman. Maybe we can find some answers."

"Keep me posted. Regina's gonna want to know."


End file.
